The City of Yorkton is leaving ticketing and the enforcement of those tickets in private parking lots to lot owner.
In the past a number of private lots, including Yorkton Regional High School, Yorkton Regional Health Centre, Yorkton & District Nursing Home, Parkland Mall, and the Painted Hand Casino, have been enforced under the City’s Traffic Bylaw, explained Brant Hryhorczuk, Manager of Building Services, at the regular meeting of Council Monday.
The sites have their own parking ticket people issuing tickets, he explained, adding the tickets are the City of Yorkton tickets and the revenue came to the City.
“If the tickets end up going to Court it is the City of Yorkton Bylaw Enforcement Officer that speaks to the ticket in the Court proceedings. The City of Yorkton is incurring the costs of the tickets, the cost of collection and the time and cost of having the Bylaw Enforcement Officer attend the Court proceedings. The cost to the City for these tickets is greater than the revenue that we are receiving,” detailed a report circulated to Council.
“Also we are experiencing more and more tickets going to the Court stage since Sunrise Health Region implemented the paid parking at the hospital. Their staff is more aggressive when writing their tickets. This poses a problem to the City as we cannot control the tickets that are being written. Our staff deals with the residents’ complaints since they have to pay the ticket at City Hall and we don’t have the information regarding the issuance of the ticket.”
Hryhorczuk said Administration felt it was time to change the process.
“We are proposing that the City discontinue with enforcement of parking in privately owned parking lots and to have the owners of those lots do their own enforcement,” he said. “…This would mean that private parking lots would need to use a collection agent to collect their tickets.”
In updating the Traffic Bylaw Hryhorczuk said it was also felt there was a need to address trailers on street for business.
“Currently the City bylaws do not allow trailers to be parked on the street if they are unhitched from a truck. This includes all trailers whether they are for recreational purposes or for business purposes. This would mean that a business at a job site (say for a roofing company) would have to hook up their trailer at lunch time or if they had to run out for more supplies and take the trailer with them,” detailed the report.
“We are proposing that a temporary permit be issued in these situations that will allow the trailer to be parked at a job site during the day without it being hitched to the truck at all times,” said Hryhorczuk.
“Bylaw Enforcement Officers will be provided with a list of all trailers that have a permit for this purpose and this will allow businesses to conduct their business and it will set a difference between the recreational trailers and the trailers meant for business purposes.”
The recommendations were given all three readings Monday by unanimous vote.
